


Drafts/Notes/WIPs for 2020 Secret Santa

by StorytellerSecrets



Series: Secret Santa Gift(s) for @indecisive-in-every-way/@din-dameron [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Ideas, Brain Surgery, Clone Trooper Rebellion (Star Wars), Conglomerate Writing Mess, Conspiracy, Conspiracy Theories, Direct Action, Doctor Reader - Freeform, Drafts, F/M, Female Reader, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Order 66 Happened Differently (Star Wars), Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Reader-Insert, SUMMARIES, Scripts, Snippets, Surgeon Reader, Surgeons, ideas to be used at a later date, or at least unused ideas, outline, slavery is bad and the reader thinks so too, written like a newspaper/journal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29124237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StorytellerSecrets/pseuds/StorytellerSecrets
Summary: A place for me to store all my writing notes and maybe think about finishing some of them.What it says on the tin.Written as unofficial content for @indecisive-in-every-way/@din-dameron's Secret SantaTheme: winter or in-universeRequest: 501st, Anakin, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan. Also open to x reader fics for any of them if fanfiction.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Reader, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker/Reader, CC-3636 | Wolffe & Reader, CT-7567 | Rex/Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Original Character & Original Character, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: Secret Santa Gift(s) for @indecisive-in-every-way/@din-dameron [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071422
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Interesting Times](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275144) by [StorytellerSecrets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StorytellerSecrets/pseuds/StorytellerSecrets). 



> Why am I posting this? I don't know. Just because.
> 
> It stands as proof that my writing process is . . . chaotic, mildly put.

**Potentials:**

  * story of how many vague OCs think Obi-wan is the shit
  * story of how many vague OCs are inspired by Ahsoka
  * Anakin and you keep getting stuck in various romantic holiday tropes. The problem is you hate each other
  * Santa tries to leave presents for Ahsoka. She’s eight, but Anakin has never been subtle.
  * Obi-wan is a sad white man who doesn’t celebrate the Holidays. Both Anakin and Ahsoka WILL be fixing this.
  * Ahsoka hates you, but you need to win her over to feel comfortable continuing your relationship with Anakin. Hence, winter bonding



-:-

**Anakin knows what to do:**

  * Anakin has powers, is running from Evil Bad, Obi-wan finds him
  * Anakin is the antichrist, Padme’s an angel, and neither one of them are doing what they’re supposed to
  * Anakin’s the antichrist, and Obi-wan is just trying to get through his day
  * AHSOKA is the antichrist, Anakin is just trying to explain to his wife how she got there



-:-

**Santa, Ahsoka, four:**

“Daddy, when is Santa coming?” Ahsoka asked, wide eyes staring up at him innocently. Anakin winced and kneeled next to her to deliver the news.

“Tomorrow,” he said. Immediately, Ahsoka’s brow furrowed and her lips curled into a pout.

“But I want him here _today._ ”

“Have patience, little one,” Anakin said as he patted her head, despite having never waited for anything in his life.

Ahsoka scrunched her little nose at the idea. “I don’t _want_ to wait,” she whined.

“I know,” went Anakin.

“It sucks.”

“I _know,_ ” he responded, equally aggrieved.

-

“Obi-wan’s coming?” Ahsoka asked, perking up her breakfast.

“Well, he was. The rain’s keeping him away.” Padme answered, frowning unhappily at her phone.

“How?”

“Well, the plane he’s going on can’t fly if it’s raining,” Padme replied.

“But we flewed when it was raining once,” Ahsoka accused from over her pancakes.

“Flew,” Anakin said instinctively, but Ahsoka was focused on other things.

“He _has_ to come, Padme. If he doesn’t, I’ll _die_.”

“You won’t die,” Anakin immediately let out, distraught at even the fictional mention of his daughter's death.

“It’s a - it’s not real,” Ahsoka said before pausing, “I won’t die, just be really sad.”

“That’s called a metaphor, Ahsoka,” Padme interjected, "I'm surprised you know what that is."

Ahsoka grinned. "Obi says I'm _really_ smart."

Anakin shared a smile with Padme. "Obi-wan is right."

-:-

**Obi-wan has to raise Anakin in modern AU also it’s Christmas and he made a friend**

  * From Anakin’s perspective



Anakin’s first memory of Obi-wan is on what is undeniably the worst day of life. He sitting in a cold, sterile waiting room, shaking out of his bones. [ELABORATE]

His mother is dead. She never said anything about his father. Anakin never asked.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of the same shit, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We Are Literally All Over The Place Here

Anakin has never seen the snow before.

-:-

The sky is black: rain is falling. Coruscant is illuminated by a wreath of clouds a pale sun sits nestled in.

There is no thunder or lightning, no howling winds that left your hands wrapping around your ears. Even though the clouds are dark with water-weight, there are no foreboding crackles in the sky or torrential downpours.

-:-

Anakin watches the planet’s distant sun settle low against the horizon and thinks _, oh._

_This is what it feels like._

After everything is done, Anakin comes home.

-

When he’s building it it’s instinctive, connecting operating wires here and emitter sensors there. It’s only after that he realizes the gravity of what he’s done.

Or: At the end of the war, it isn’t Obi-wan that makes his way to Tatooine.

Anakin comes home.

-

Anakin’s home is people.

-:-

The story is this:

Three days after the official declaration of peace between the Separatist movement and the Galactic Republic, Anakin Skywalker disappears.

There is no trace. The galaxy’s best slicers can’t find even an afterimage. Overnight, every article, radio channel, newsletter, and holovid even mentioning the famed “Hero With No Fear” are torn down without explanation. What was once referred to as the Skywalker Frenzy becomes just another Coruscant Conspiracy.

Where is Anakin Skywalker? The Jedi are not willing to answer the question. His family unknown, his associates tight-lipped and resistant. His friends: dead.

The galactically-known “Team” is one singular man, unrecognizable and unimportant without his companion. Referred to as _the Negotiator_ by some, Obi-wan Kenobi is expectedly reticent and unwilling to speak with the press.

What we know is that on the first Primeday of the third month, three Jedi entered the Senate under ethical obligations to imprison our previous Chancellor.

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but these Jedi were not having fun. Master’s Fisto, Kolar, and Windu stormed the senate building with eight of their most trusted advisors...the clones.

Commanders Neyo, Fil, and Cody, along with several high ranking ARC troopers stormed the senate building alongside…

-

AN: _Right, and I get that, I really do, but what drove you here, Snah?_

SA: [brief huff of laughter] Zos, he’s our pilot. Drives me everywhere but crazy.

ML: Yes...what an amazing pilot he is, Zos. Gave me a little something before the ride to make it easier on my delicate sensibilities.

AN: _...Right. But honestly, Snah, you can’t tell me you planned on being in the middle of the world’s biggest conspiracy._

DvN: _The_ **_world_ ** _? The entire_ **_galaxy_ ** _wants what you have, Mrs. Vall._

SA: Hey, whoever wants it can _have_ it. They just have to take all of it.

AN: _[laughing] Oh, I don’t think any of us are ready for that._

DvN: _I am_ **_so_ ** _good without the brain-eaters._ **_So_ ** _good_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is that last bit about? An OC uncovers the Skywalker Conspiracy I guess
> 
> Let me know if anything sounds cool and I'll do more for it probably!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the same stuff. Wowza.

Anakin turns ten in the summer. It's a hot, windy August with gusts so strong green leaves are blowing off the trees like it's fall.

Leaves are dancing on the headstone next to him, all slate-grey and vibrant green. They twist the letters on the marble, turning SKYWALKER to SIVWALKEP.

_SHVI SIVWALKEP,_ it reads before it turns again.

Twigs crunch behind him as someone steps closer but Anakin doesn't look away. Eventually, someone sighs.

"Anakin," Obi-wan says from behind him. Despite being the beginning of the conversation it's a tired sort of voice he has, as though they've already fought this battle.

Anakin glares at the leaves.

"We can't just _leave_ ," he protests. His voice is dragged across the desert sands, scraped raw and gouged deep from sediment and cactus barbs.

In return, Obi-wan's voice is cradled in the air.

"I understand," the man says, and it whirls in the wind and slips quick like a whistle in Anakin's ears. Like fruit in dry land, the sound soothes the worst of his aches and hums inside of him.

Obi-wan is a siren singing in a dead sea. Sand has swallowed water and the sharp-toothed predator of man turned omnivorous and ate everything green. The desert is what has been left.

The desert is a home for things no one else wants. Anakin is wanted, doesn't want to leave home.

"I understand," Obi-wan says again, and his voice is hugged as he speaks, "I know, Anakin, but we have to go."

-:-

**Winter Power Outage:**

Anakin wakes with a start.

"Something's wrong," he tells himself, jerking upright in his bed.

The room is dark, windows covered with thick drapes and the normally-glowing lights turned off. Obi-wan must have done it. No one else went into Anakin's room without dire reasons.

It was cold, but December showed no mercy, and Anakin is already wearing thermal sleep clothes. Nothing else seems wrong, but his mind speaks of immediate danger.

"Obi-wan?" Anakin calls towards the dark of his room. There is a fifty percent chance that Obi-wan is involved in whatever disaster awaits, a forty percent chance Ahsoka is in the crux of it, and an estimated eighty-seven percent chance that Anakin himself is the problem. (There is, indeed, a bit of overlap between them all.)

This is, unfortunately, cited math. One of the grad students next door had been so happy to have met their teacher's exacting standards for their conceptual thesis, and Anakin has never said no to anything his neighbors ask him for in his life.

More unfortunately, there is no Obi-wan lurking in the dark depths of Anakin's room, so Anakin decides the problem must be outside of his corner of happiness.

He walks towards the direction he's relatively sure his door is and almost immediately steps into a desk.

Cursing, he holds his arm out and eventually finds the doorknob.

The hallway, oddly, is no lighter.

"Is the power out?" Anakin asks, correctly guessing his scenario before dismissing the notion under the assumption that someone would have woken him up. This assumption is flawed only because Obi-wan, ever stalwart in his duties as a human alarm-clock, relies heavily on an actual electric alarm clock. When the power had left during the night, so had Obi-wan's only method for waking up, thus delaying Anakin's arrival into the waking world. This bit will be important later.

Assuming the world must simply have ended, Anakin goes to wake Ahsoka and tell her of the news. Unfortunately for him, Ahsoka's room is at the end of the hallway, and Anakin stubs his toes no less than six separate times before he reaches her room.

"Ahsoka," he calls into it.

No one answers.

" _Ahsoka_ ," he says a bit louder.

The room is still and quiet.

"Ahsoka!" he yells, and there is no answer.

A long pause, then a voice. "Why are we yelling?" Obi-wan asks from the void.

-

Turning from the open door, Ahsoka eyes Anakin. "Alright, what did you do?" she demands and Anakin sputters.

"I didn't—literally, that makes no sense—wait, no, Snips—I wasn't—"

Ahsoka raises an eyebrow. "Well, one of you did something, so who was it?"

Anakin looks to Obi-wan.

" _I_ certainly didn't do it," Obi-wan says wryly. "Though I'm not sure how you think we've caused a _blizzard_."

-

"Well, the good news is we have no power!" Anakin grins as he walks up to the counter.

Ahsoka groans.

"That's not good news, Anakin," Obi-wan says with far too much enjoyment.

"I was _trying_ to be optimistic," Anakin says, glaring. The two quickly devolve into friendly squabbling.

"Ugh," Ahsoka says disgustedly, voice muffled by the table.

-:-

**Interesting Times Snippet/Draft:**

At the same time Anakin says, "her name is Snips," an entirely random person walking by humorously drawls, "her _name_ is _Ahsoka_."

Ahsoka, looking Anakin dead in the eyes, says, "I've never seen this man before in my entire life."

Anakin, who knows the tricks, rolls his eyes. "Right, sure, but how do you know him?"

The man, a shorter red-haired fellow, pauses. "No, no, she's right. We've never met," he admits before walking away, and the humor of telling strangers secrets in public places drops from the air in an instant.

"Great," Anakin says catastrophically. "We're going to die by the hands of a mysterious ginger in an airport bathroom."

"Eww, airport bathrooms," the kid next to Jesse says, and he's eating noodles out of a tupperware bowl.

Bowl.

Noodles.

"Tup," Anakin says, having figured it out. "Your name is Tup."

The kid tilts his head and frowns through his noodles. "It's not, though?"

Anakin nods. "It is. Anyways Tup, we're all about to die at the hands of a middle-aged male Natasha Romanoff."

Echo immediately interjects. "That man was not _middle-aged_. He was thirty, forty at the most."

"It's middle-aged if you aren't a coward," Jesse says.

The man, who had apparently not left or had been returning, asks, "Are you a coward, Jesse?"

Jesse gulps. "Maybe?" he tries.

Echo, who both claims and proves to fear no man, asks, "Are you Jesus?"

"I'm white," the man responds. He is, in fact, white.

"That is the only valid response," Ahsoka pipes in from where she and Fives are watching their deaths-by-stranger play out.

"And it's even true!" Fives grins.

Anakin makes a decision. Standing up, he asks the man, "Do you know _my_ name?"

The man blinks. "...Anakin, wasn't it?"

Anakin gasps. “You _are_ Jesus!”

The man rolls his eyes. “Again, white. And I'm sure everyone within a half-mile radius knows your name, with how loud you've been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was that first one? I don't know :)


	4. Rex/Surgeon!Reader Order 66 AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My first attempt at a /Reader fanfiction. Not really my cup of tea, but writing it was fun. If I ever get in the mood again I'd like to finish it. EST. Completion would be about 20,000 words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I know what I am doing? Absolutely not.
> 
> Will that stop me? Probably, yeah.

They come in running, blasterfire hot on their heels. They’re moving fast, faster than you’d expect with one party unconscious and the other injured. Their line of motion is almost a blur.

It could be because the girl isn’t human, but you’ve seen Togrutas in motion before. Even the most impressive fail to meet this one’s pace, and those were all full-grown. The girl is little more than a teenager.

Impressive, considering she’s carrying a full-grown man. She might have enhancements on her arms and legs, or perhaps the man is light.

There’s a chance, however rare, that she’s a new type of mixed-species, though Togrutas have never been able to mix before. If she is, it’s likely she’s sterile, like most hybrids.

You can’t think of any other reason she’d be able to outrun troopers with two-hundred pounds of man in her arms. It’s an estimate, technically, but given what little of the man’s sizable stature you can see, it’s near-accurate.

The moment they breach the entryway, you slam the door shut. It’s not a moment too soon, and the ricochet of plasma on the metal of the door rings in your ears.

The girl drops the man onto a bolted medical cot before running to man the ship.

You’d finished setting up both the cot and the ship moments before their arrival, though it had taken more time than you preferred. Large cargo haulers and medical frigates were one thing. Operating in smaller crafts was risky because there was less frame to dissolve shipwide movements.

Precision will be difficult.

The ship lurches into the air. Neither you nor the man in front of you has had time to strap in, which is just as well since there aren’t any. The world around you swerves as the girl tries to avoid the blasterfire you can hear just outside. It’s not a noise you’re used to, and its proximity has you jolting near every time.

The man’s body rolls with the ship’s movement, almost tumbling off the cot before you can pin him down. It’s hard to keep him in place. You have to keep one hand grabbing at the edge of the cot, but your other hand isn’t enough to hold him. Instead, you end leaning over him, body pressed against his as you try to stop him from rolling away.

This close, it’s hard not to agree with your earlier assessment. Two-hundred-pounds might sound like a lot to some, but muscle weighs more than fat. With the press of your chest against his, it’s clear this guy is _loaded_.

It might be inappropriate for a surgeon to consider her patients, but you just agreed to jump aboard a stolen aircraft to perform emergency field surgery on an unconscious man’s brain. Etiquette is the least of your worries.

You feel the ship’s shudder as you’re launched into hyperspace, and you hope this isn’t a mistake.

-

The girl comes to you a few minutes after you’ve stabilized your patient on the cot. You’re trying not to think about how stupid it was to accept this kind of call while you set up an emergency IV. You’re grateful that saline was one of the things you’d had the foresight to bring. It was in most of your running kits, though you’d had to throw in more supplies than usual. Brain surgery does that, funnily enough.

You don’t hear footsteps as she walks into the area you’ve secluded. She walks in soundlessly, and you only notice her presence as you move to grab a drill kit by her feet.

You jolt, surprised. “ _Fekking_ hells.” The girl raises a judgmental frontalis. It’s interesting how her markings there look like eyebrows.

You hadn’t noticed before, but her facial marks make her eyes look bigger than they are. It’d make her look younger if her face wasn’t so pained. As it is, her eyes are dark and her frown sits heavy on her face. Her hands shift constantly towards her side.

You _had_ noticed, after you pulled yourself off him, that the man was wearing military thermals. The assumption you had made then placed him from a particularly cruel warring planet or enslaved as a private protector.

Two days ago peace was announced throughout the Galaxy. The war against the Separatists was declared won. The Jedi were declared enemies of the people, though that bit hadn’t mattered much then.

Until a moment ago, you used to think the Jedi were scant more than just a rumor run wild. But Jedi can do things, like maybe carry a heavy man while outrunning a squad of troopers.

  
At the girl’s side, there are two weapons you immediately recognize as lightsabers and you think, _Oh_.

-

You see the moment she spots your dawning realization, her eyes flickering from the man to where her sabers rest. Her eyes widen and she moves.

Your hands are in the air before she finishes her first step. You move to the side, giving her a clear and easy path to the man.

  
The first step of de-escalating a situation is to take stock of it. It had been clear from the first moment you met that she’d never planned to hurt the man, but the opposite. You have just discovered she is a documented terrorist and enemy-at-large. You have her only known ally unconscious on a bed, with a scalpel in your hand. It’s not hard to do the math.

So you move aside, give her room to wiggle out of the metaphorical corner she’s gotten herself in, and raise your hands.

You need to even the playing field. Right now, she has nothing on you. You know everything about her that matters, which is that she’s an enemy to most of the galaxy.

“My job is to perform life-saving surgery on slaves, most of which are from the Republic,” is the most damnable thing you think to say. The implications are clear: slavery is illegal in the Republic, which means they were in unlawful circumstances or the Republic had known. Given you aren’t heralded as a hero and have several wanted person’s notices in your name, the answer is pretty straightforward.

“You mean the Empire?” the girl mocks cruelly, but she stops rushing towards you and pulling out her laser swords so you count it as a win.

You wrinkle your nose. Dictatorships have never gone well, statistically, and it doesn’t sit well with you to be part of one. Which, really, is why you’re so calm. The girl might be enemy number one and have unrealistic magic powers and laser swords, but at least she wasn’t with the guys taking over the galaxy.

“Yeah, sure. The Empire,” you agree before jerking your chin at the unconscious man and asking, “He got magic superpowers too?”

The girl blinks. ‘Magic superpowers,’ she mouths, a bit startled, before it clicks. She tenses again, eyes flashing dark and hand jerking towards her hip.

“No,” she spits, taking another step towards you.

“Great, because I have no idea how that affects your brain. This is already risky enough; I _really_ don’t want to operate on something I don’t remotely understand.” You keep your tone light and your hands high, making yourself as non-threatening as possible.

It doesn’t work.

Something in the girl’s expression twists and she tears out a saber. “He’s not a _thing_!” she growls, enraged. Her body coils, about to go in for the kill.

_There is a scalpel in my hand,_ you think. You could use it, but you won’t. Even if she is a magic warrior, she’s a child, or young enough to pass for one. If she thought you were calling her friend an it, her response is more than understandable. Hell, you’ve been attacked for less. Despite you talking to a magic swordsman, this conversation is a common one in your chosen field.

“I meant his brain,” you placate, and she doesn’t put away her lightsaber but she loosens out of her fighting stance. You put your arms down.

Both to establish a sympathetic connection and because you’re genuinely curious, you ask, “Who is he?”

“His _name_ is Rex,” she spits, and then, intently watching your face, adds, “He’s a clone.”

The Jedi and the clones fought in the war side-by-side. It only makes sense that not all of them would agree with the Empire’s orders.

You’re surprised most of them did.

Well, you were. If there’s an implant in all of their heads, there’s reason enough to kill your own, no matter what the thing does.

“Right,” you start. “What’s your name?”

The girl looks at you hard, searching for something in your face. You aren’t sure whether or not she finds it. “...Ahsoka,” is what she eventually says.

“Okay, Ahsoka. In order to do this, I need to know what the implant does.” She stares at you again, for longer than before. Her corrugator supercilii is pinched, brow furrowing.

“It controls him,” she says, sounding sick. You can’t blame her. You’d be sick, too, if your day job wasn’t what it was.

“Right. This’ll take about four hours, in that case. I’ll need you out of here then.” She starts to protest, but you cut her off.

“ _No_. Look, kid. I am cutting into your friend’s — Rex’s — brain to take out a piece of highly-volatile machinery. This is already high-risk without the lack of equipment. I need you out of here — it could literally save his life.”

The girl — Ahsoka — frowns. “Now?” she asks, and you nod.

“Okay,” she says before putting her lightsabers back in their holsters. “But if you hurt him I’ll fucking kill you.”

For a moment you think to agree before you remember this is brain surgery. You shake your head. “This is high-risk. I’ll do what I can.”

“This should take anywhere from three to five hours,” you tell her, and she nods sharply before walking out.

Wonderful.

You turn to the man, unconscious and thus unaware of the present situation, think _I wish that were me,_ and get to work.

-

Three hours later your scalpels are red, your gloves are slick with cerebrospinal fluid, and the man is alive.

There are two durasteel plates keeping his skull together, a bacta patch on his head, and a tray full of used and bloodied utensils. The chip is on the table, next to the sterilized and unused tools.

It had come out easy, barely needing to be separated from the surrounding brain matter...

-:-

**Extra Snippet Of Way Down The Line:**

“You want to know if you’re pretty?” Rex asks, and he sounds disbelieving.

It hurts, gut-punchingly similar to losing a patient. But this isn’t a patient, it’s Rex, and he’s still right there.

“I didn’t say I was a showstopper, Rex. Kark, tell me how you really feel.” You’re being sarcastic to hide the wound, and you know this is something you got from Wolffe. Wolffe, who’d be rolling his eyes at the situation, calling you both stupid and knocking your heads together like he’d sometimes do to the cadets. Not hard enough to hurt, really, but enough to “shock out your stupid.”

Wolffe, who let the Empire have him so the twins could get away. Wolffe, who was dead.

Suddenly, you don’t want to be here anymore. The picnic, the confession — in hindsight, it all seems like a bad idea. Neither of you should be here. You have people who need operations and more people still to train, and Rex has a galaxy to save and a generation of brothers to take care of. Both of you have better things to do, and neither Rex nor you can afford this kind of complication.

It’s not as though you didn’t realize he might not return the feeling. There has always been the chance of failure, but with the flowers, and the armor — well, you had thought, and you were wrong.

You get up, stumbling a little as your feet get caught in the blanket. “I’ll — I’ll go,” you get out before your vision blurs.

It’s humiliating to be a grown woman crying over not being pretty enough. You’ve never really cared what others thought of your appearance, nor really took stock in it. The crying is embarrassing. You can’t seem to stop.

You want to walk away and hide in your room. It’s what you plan to do, too, but before you can get very far Rex yells for you to stop.

“Wait, please. I… _Osik_ , just wait for a second?”

You sigh, but you nod, waiting, even though you’d rather leave. Rex is asking and you are a fool, and you will always say yes when he asks. You’d give worlds to see him happier, so you wait and Rex finds his proverbial footing.

He finds his real footing, too, and you hear the dry grass crunching underneath his feet as he makes his way to you. A moment, two, and he’s there, blurry through the tears.

“I waited,” you say, put out and still crying. Rex smiles.

“You did,” he agrees and brushes his thumbs underneath your eyes. Almost on instinct, you grab for his wrists, and you stand there for a moment, his hands on your face and yours on his arms.

Rex takes his time to speak. “…I never meant to say you weren’t pretty. You surprised me, doctor.”

You huff out a breath. “Not a doctor,” you rebuke quietly, but you’re hardly mad anymore.

Rex snorts. “Semantics,” he says, before setting his hands on your shoulders and looking you in the eyes.

“You’re more than pretty,” he insists determinedly. Without the tears, you realize he’s blushing. The blonde of his hair and beard stands out brightly against the red of his face and neck. There’s something to be said, about how calm he is on missions and how flustered he gets around you, but the words escape you.

“You’re beautiful, doctor,” and he says your title like a prayer, the words like indelible fact. When he says it, you believe him, and you aren’t sure which one of you pulls the other in first before you’re kissing.

Still not a doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm proud of this one, and I really hope I can get the energy to finish it at some point!

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear, this was me _actively trying_ to stick to the theme. There was a lot of WIP writing done, and most of it doesn't fall anywhere close to the prompt.
> 
> Tell me if anything sounds interesting and I can try to write more of it!


End file.
